New Orleans-based Iguanas brings its music to Narrows Center Arts Fest

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Wednesday

Sep 5, 2018 at 1:50 PM

You could make a serious case that, when booking a festival with music, The Iguanas include so many varieties and styles they could be the only group you'd need to delight a broad audience. As it turns out however, the 17th annual Narrows Center Arts Fest, taking place Sunday both inside and outside the Fall River venue, will include a long list of performers, and it's all a free event.

The Iguanas have a long and unique connection to southeastern Massachusetts, perhaps beginning when they were opening Jimmy Buffett's 1994 tour at Great Woods (now The Xfinity Center) in Mansfield. When they headlined the 2005 Green Harbor Roots and Blues Festival at the Marshfield Fair, it occurred on a weekend when a hurricane was bearing down on their hometown of New Orleans. Wrapping up their set that day, the Iguanas joked that they hoped they'd have homes when they returned to the Crescent City, but Hurricane Katrina devastated their city beyond anyone's expectations, and the members of the band would have to temporarily re-locate to Austin, Texas for the next few years.

The last time we talked with the band, they were on a swing that included gigs at the Narrows Center, and also Johnny D's in Davis Square, Somerville, two of their regular stops. But of course now Johnny D's is gone.

The appeal of the Iguanas music, however, is enduring and that's what made them such an intriguing attraction since they began in 1989. Lots of New Orleans groups play some kind of musical gumbo, but the Iguanas really take the cross-cultural mixmaster thing to a delightful extreme, as their music melds rock, Latin and Tex-Mex elements, rhythm and blues, jazz, Chicano rock, mambo and second-line rhythms. The band's music has popped up on soundtracks to the TV series "Homicide: Life on the Streets" in 1994, and in the movie "Phenomenon" in 1996. They've recorded for Buffett's Margaritaville Records, on the major label MCA imprint, and for their last two albums on an indie co-op label that was in New Orleans.

The Iguanas' ninth and most recent album was 2014's "Juarez," which was a bracing collection of their genre-crossing, but always sizzling and dance-happy music. That album's cuts, for instance, ranged from the irresistible Mexican-flavored dancefloor workout "Wedding of Chicken and Snake" to the spacey "Blues for Juarez," to the doo-wop influenced ballad "Make That Magic Happen." Just for good measure there was also the New Orleans mambo of "Slumming," and the accordion romp "Matamoros Way." As their website notes, the Iguanas' recent records are a delectable combination of "Rue Bourbon, Muscle Shoals and Plaza Mexico" all intersecting.

The Iguanas include Rene Coman on vocals, bass, and keyboards, Rod Hodges on guitar and accordion, Joe Cabral on saxophone and vocals, and Doug Garrison on drums and percussion. After more than 20 years of ferocious touring, the Iguanas take a more relaxed approach these days, in part because they have a Wednesday night residency at their hometown's Circle Bar.

We caught up with Coman this week, as the Gulf Coast was preparing for yet another tropical storm. He mentioned that New Orleans had cancelled school on Tuesday, but it had turned out to be a nice, sunshiny day, with the storm expected to hit overnight.

"We've had that Circle Bar residency for a couple of years and it's really been fun," said Coman. "It's an early evening gig, so one of the keys is that it lets people who are out of the habit of going out, have some fun and get home early. It's become kind of a scene all its own, and it's pretty well attended. The thing is that it's a nice size room, so we don't need a ton of people for it to feel full. It has great sound, so we can really play to the room. The sound quality is really warm, but it also has a low threshold, so too much sound can blow it out. We play the room like a speaker, and we're able to use precise dynamics, and a relatively low volume that works well for our music."

Obviously, such a regular show offers the ability to try new material.

"We do use the Circle Bar residency to work new stuff into our set," said Coman. "We can add to our repertoire, or pull older stuff out and revive it. We like to try new songs, covers, and it makes for an attitude where we can just say, "Let's try this, let's try that.' Sometimes we will run into something where we decide we might be better off trying it once or twice in rehearsal, but most of the time we can handle almost anything. It's like a regular chance to turn the engine over, not like it would be if we'd been off for a couple months. Playing this weekly gig, results in having the band operate on a whole nice, solid level, as if we'd been touring for months. But, it's a very copacetic atmosphere."

With four years since their last album, are the Iguanas planning to release new music?

"We have a bunch of new material," said Coman, "and the next issue is to figure out the best way to release the new music. Every few records, it seems, we have to work in a new vein of the business. We've been on Margaritaville, and MCA, and our last two records were on this local co-op label, which we did with the Tidy Street Studios, right here in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. That worked well, and they put out a lot of great albums, but they got to the point where they sold the building. They have moved out to the country – roughly two hours away. So, by choice or necessity, we have to find another way to release our next record. It does keep things interesting."

"We did release a single during Jazz Fest down here," Coman added. "We did a new tune called 'Needle in a Haystack,' and put it out on iTunes, and with a YouTube video. It's a really fun new song that gets people dancing, and that release worked pretty well for us. I don't know if we'd continue to do one or two-song singles like that, or maybe try an EP. If people don't buy CDs anymore, what do we want to do? People tell us vinyl is making a comeback, and that's fun but how many pieces would we sell that way? So we're not convinced, yet, that we should move in any one direction. It seems that, just like the last decade or so, the business is in a time of flux."

The Iguanas' touring schedule is also a bit tricky, as they seek to balance the demand for their shows around the country with their residency commitment, and the fact that they all have families now and months on the road isn't as attractive an option as it used to be.

"We did a substantial tour of the Midwest in June, getting up as far north as Virginia," Coman noted. "We're coming back out for this quick weekend to New England. Then we have a quick trip to Colorado for two or three dates the week after. We don't go out for too long these days, and working around the Wednesday residency is part of it. We used to like to go out and stay for weeks at a time, but what you find is that so many of those early-week dates, Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, you just end up paying for a hotel room and waiting for the weekend dates. So that sort of long touring is not as sustainable for anyone as it used to be."

Through whatever changes the music industry has, the Iguanas' hunger for new sounds and trying new things continues, and the four members still love what they do.

"I think if there's any new flavors in our new music today, it's a certain hill country blues direction," Coman mused. "Then we toss out a few other flavors. We've still got eclectic tastes. There's a bundle of things we do, new music and our older stuff, that have gone through some permutations that are really cool. We keep trying to find new ways of doing even the oldest stuff, and we have not exhausted that approach yet.

"I think you can see that progression, that constant trying different things, through all our records," Coman added. "Our third album, for example, was more experimental. We've always brought unconventional ways of playing our music to the records. Live, onstage, we tend to be much more dance-oriented. It's great to be going back to play at the Narrows Center, and playing on a festival like this, we'll probably take a slight shift in our set, including more of the good-vibe material that enhance the whole celebration."

Away from music, Coman also hosts a podcast called "Troubled Men" on iTunes, with New Orleans gadfly Manny Chevrolet. "He's a perennial candidate for mayor down here," said Coman. "He's going to keep running until he wins, but we talk about everything, and that's been a lot of fun."